Season 3, 2026

2026-10-25

The ongoing stretch of enormous seasons continues! Season 3 of 2026 marks the 7th gargantuan season in a row. I'm certainly not going to complain, it's been great to work with so many people on awesome projects, but I feel it's important to take a step back and recognise (once again) that my limits are being reached, if not exceeded.

Let's take a quick look at the goals laid out in July:

> Spruce up the Memory Card Audio Website

DONE! Just needed to add a couple of pages, didn't do any significant overhauls. It's mainly a junk mail magnet at this point lol.

> Go completely offline for 7 days

Yeah we all knew this wasn't happening, but I still like the spirit. I've got a week away booked in for mid-november, so hopefully that can keep burnout at bay while the year closes out.

> Make 12 pieces of music

As I count now it looks like I totaled around 8 pieces? (Theres some weird stuff with variations and tiny tunes in there) which to be quite honest is more than I thought, and a number I'm proud of!

Overall, better than I expected :)

Final Mario 64 Speedrun

Talent Quest came to a close, and I brought my Mario 64 Speedrunning "career" to an end. My PB ended up b eing 19 minutes flat (but I didn't save the VOD so there's literally 0 evidence lol). I had fun focussing on this, and I want to do a more detailed write up about it, but just couldn't make the space for it this season. Keep an eye out here, hopefully I can get it written up before the year is out.

The KBO

The desire to watch some baseball arose in me back in July, and after some cursory searching, I found that the Korean baseball league (KBO) streamed every match online for free! It's been fun following a team through the season (Let's go KT WIZ) and while I was hoping the whole thing would wrap up before this season finished, we're currently in the post-season, waiting for the final few teams to slug it out for the title.

I was also lucky in that the gang was willing to jump on for the ride, and seems to have liked picking a team and following their progress through the season. It can be a bit rough when you're committed to the underdogs, but there's also some fun in having no steaks attached to your teams performance.

I've come to enjoy baseball, and appreciate the aims of its design. I enjoy that heaps of stats can be extracted constantly, and the players eventually become very recognisable as they have a moment in the spotlight while they're on base. It has been an interesting expreience approaching the sport with minimal cultural baggage, especially since it's not the American major leagues. I do hope to return to the KBO for future seasons, and hey, if I ever manage to travel there in baseball time, I'll be sure to check out a game in person.

Grants & Acquittals

The behemoth once again raised its fearsome head this year, and while I had experience on my side, it didn't make the challenge any smaller. On top of all the regular grant submission business, there was also the task of acquitting the grants from last year, which extended the work by another few weeks beforehand. And not only that, but the process of incorporating a company (a first for me) had to be completed as a requirement for one of our grants too.

It was freaking huge, but we got over the line, and we were all proud of what we were able to submit. This is one of those sections where I don't have a whole lot to share, but just want to make note of the fact that it was something massiver that had to be done, and we smashed it.

Coding Textbooks

In amongst all the fervor of grant acquittals and applications, I found a big long list of game programming textbooks. It was fun to dig through these, and to finally see a path laid out progresively through the different aspects of programming that are directly relevant for games stuff. So far I've only made it through a couple of the smaller ones and half of the C# basics book, but already it's been exciting to solidify my knowledge and feel more confident (especially with Unity stuff). I'm excited to learn some more about engine specific things, and eventually try to work in some regular programming to really ingrain the knowledge. Hopefully, I can keep focussing on videogames for the rest of my life from now on, so getting familiar with these skills is going to be super helpful.

(In saying this though, I don't want to overshadow any music focussed learning or practise either, so I want to try and keep a balance there... just means more time spent...haha)

Games Week 2026

This was Melbourne International Games Week #4 for me, and it easily shone the brightest of any so far. It felt fantastic to go down again with the residency crew and have such a tight knit network of friends around everywhere. We had some great chats with peers and potential collaborators, and it felt like every project had a great moment to shine throughout the week. Nevertheless, it was huge, and tiring. I was definitely glad for it to be over by the end of the 10 day trip, but also chuffed that I got to continue working with such great people into the future.

The big difference for me this year was my first time showing at PAX. I had the honour of working on four (!) different games on the show floor. I manned the Moonbrella booth for the span of the show, but all the other games were super close and it was very nice to have people be sent over to say hello. Boothing was nice, but I don't think I get as much out of it as some other people (and my feet freaking hurt, yo). I probably won't be jumping at the chance to booth at PAX again, but it is nice to go an support the people you work with and show off the result of all the work put in over the last year (or more!)

Of course it wasn't all sunshine and rainbows, I felt obligated to go to Freakon, but didn't really have a good time, and the same went for Parallels. There was also a bunch of networking events mixed in, and every one felt like more and more of a strain on my psyche. I did, however, finally decide that I just don't like "networking" and that's fine. Don't get me wrong, meeting people is great, and people in games are seriously the best, but my brain just melts when there's a whole bunch of people trying to achieve different things through similar means in one cramped room.

I also have come to terms with the fact that I'm a notorious Melbourne hater (I won't deny it any more. It's pure personal prejudice at this point.) I hope I can evetually find the people I really gel with down there, but it's yet to be seen. Melbourners, step it up. You're too busy being posers to actually be cool. I'm not kidding and I know you won't listen to me haha.

Media Log

Books

• Piranesi (Clarke, 2021)
• Bartleby (Melville, 1853)
• Several Short Sentences About Writing (Kilnkenborg, 2012)
• Astro Boy 1&2 (Tezuka, 2008)
• Invisible Cities (Calvino, 1972)
• A Director Prepares (Bogart, 2001)
• Naruto Ch. 305-335 (Kishinmito, 2009)

TV

• Chernobyl (2019)
• Paranoia Agent (2004)

Season 4

Alright, with all of the season 3 stuff accounted for, let's take a look forward at season 4. One of the more exciting things for me about this season is that projects are going to start wrapping up! I'm super excited to get these projects over the finish line. It means I can give them some dedicated focus, and also once they're finished up, I won't be as spread out. (This also means there might be room for more things but I won't write that outside of these brackets so I have some plausable deniability.) This season is also looking a little shorter, with a big recovery break after MIGW, and then the holidays for the last two weeks of the year.

Goals

> Wrap one project

A finish line is rapidly approaching, and I want to make sure it gets all the attention it could possibly need. I'll be focussing on this project more over the coming months, and making sure everything is polished and ready to go. There will probably be a dedicated album release with this as well, so it'll be great to get familiar with that workflow and working towards that kind of release.

> Game Jam

Dengerous words, I know, but it's looking like the stars may align for a game jam before the year is out. I'd love to get dirty with a small project, with the potential for a little bit of sprucing for a commercial release later on.

> Take a break in the middle

Actually for real this time. I've committed to a trip away which is the weekend after Zelda drops, giving me the perfect excuse to veg out and luxuriate in a new game release. I'm keen.

Ok, I'd better finish up there. Thanks for joining me through all this, dear reader, and here's to better balance and burnout reduction in the future.

Live your dream,

- Oscar

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